CLOSE TO ZERO TOLERANCE

Some call it the most significant agreement on the discharge of radioactive waste into the sea. And so it may prove to be. Last week the British yielded to international pressure and agreed to stringent controls, to be phased in by 2020.

The most significant contribution probably came from France, itself a major polluter of the seas, which committed itself to reducing nuclear waste to “close to zero”.

Britain couldn’t stand alone against the tide.

This is a most important development for those living on the east coast of Ireland,

all of whom are at some risk from Sellafield. A disaster at the plant could mean the evacuation, for hundreds of years, of the entire east of the island. It’s unlikely of course. But then again . . .

As you all know, many believe that a leak at the plant was responsible for a cluster of Downs Syndrome births in the Dundalk area a generation ago. Some would go further. The Hog knows of whole families in that area which were devastated by cancer. This is a complex zone. The area around Dundalk

is one of the parts of the country which has a high level of radon gas. This in itself can be carcinogenic. But, as with so many of these things, it can also interact with other factors,

to increase the risk. Ulsterish fries could be implicated too.

This is real. There is a genuine probability that increased cancer deaths

and those Downs Syndrome clusters are part of a complex interaction of genetic and dietary factors, high radon emissions and occasional leaks from Sellafield, blown westwards by inopportune easterly winds.

We can probably never know for sure. But there it is. The new agreement won’t stop it

all, but at least it’ll cut down on, and eventually stop, the pollution of the sea. It’s a small start, but that’s all.

By a strange quirk of fate, last weekend brought the first popular predictions of impending energy shortages – an apocalypse, roared a headline in the Observer. It harks back to an earlier time, when environmentalists warned that oil reserves were finite and would run out. The new assessment suggests that global production will peak in 2002 and will begin to decline from that point on. And then, of course, oil prices will rise . . .

It might, the pessimistic view suggests, make the crises of 1973 and 1979 look like minor blips. It would also put permanent paid to the Celtic Tiger economy. If we’re smart, we’ll watch this very closely. Indeed, if we were real smart (which on the whole we’re not) we’d be working on two levels, minimising the impact of the decline and inventing new technologies to sell to others.

Look at the graphs. Reserves are finite and are almost half-used. Meanwhile the world’s population increases rapidly, and the relentless promotion of capitalist expansion means that the demand for energy will continue to grow dramatically. It doesn’t take a genius to see that a crisis can’t be headed off forever.

It’s a paradox – nuclear energy is one of the ways in which we might continue to generate usable energy in the future, but it’s currently dirty and risky, and its waste lasts across a timescale that is almost impossible to contemplate. And in terms of real sustainability we don’t have much else.

Meanwhile, and by contrast, America is getting the heat – people are dying. They’re predicting that Vesuvius will explode and a tsunami kills eight thousand in Papua New Guinea. What can I say? Life is precarious, that’s what.